


[and start over]

by cm (mumblemutter)



Series: Tumblr Things [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, PTSD, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2520773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>(Reposted from <a href="http://lokiagentofhotness.tumblr.com/post/87695168982/">Tumblr</a>.)</p>
    </blockquote>





	[and start over]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reserve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/gifts).



> (Reposted from [Tumblr](http://lokiagentofhotness.tumblr.com/post/87695168982/).)

Bucky can't sleep. He slips in and out of consciousness sometimes, is startled to wakefulness and finds barely an hour has passed.

This happens every night.

Steve is helpful. Steve is patient. Steve says things like, "It gets better, I promise," and, "I know this guy, go to his meetings sometimes. He helps."

Sam Wilson. Steve thinks Bucky doesn't remember: that there's a before brainwashing and after brainwashing, and everything else is forgotten, only recalled in nightmares.

It might just be because that's what Bucky told him. It seems easier that way. I don't remember - it never happened, and so. We're both just men out of time, trying to crawl our way back to humanity. 

But frozen under the ice is not the same, frozen under the ice is just nothingness.

"How can I help you," Steve says, and he doesn't push, because he's a good man and he understands Bucky needs space. "You just tell me what you need, I'll do what I can."

What he needs.

What he needs.

What he needs: a bit in his mouth, a casual slap across the face. Someone to hold him down until it hurts.

Instead he just says, "Maybe some warm milk will help."

"Sure, maybe that'll help. I couldn't sleep either, you know. The first few months."

The milk doesn't help.

*

He goes to a meeting. Sits in the back with a hooded shirt and his left hand gloved. The man he tried to kill, scant months ago, comes up to him afterwards.

"Are you going to tell me it gets better?"

"I never tell anyone that. You're the only one that can figure that out."

"How do you live with it?"

"One day at a time." He smiles, and Bucky knows, right then and there, why Steve likes this man so much. Respects and trusts this man so much.

"I'm not who he thinks I am."

"Most of us aren't who others think we are. That's why we need to tell them."

But he can't tell Steve anything, so that bit of advice is somewhat useless. Still, Bucky smiles, or tries to. "It's hard," he says.

"Yeah, it is."

*

His fantasies are violent, twisted things. Not memories: fantasies. He lies buried in them, hand working his cock until he comes, until the picture of the body bearing down on him fades away. Rumlow, Pierce. Steve - more often than not, Steve.

More often than not he's crying afterwards, hot with release.

But it helps, even if he still can't sleep.

*

There are places where you can go; Bucky finds out soon enough. Steve gives him access to his laptop, and Bucky tolerates him trying to show him how the internet works. The Winter Soldier understands technology, he's not a relic.

There's a man. Rough voiced, sweet faced. Brown hair, blue eyes. He'll have to do. Bucky says, "I keep my shirt on, that's the only rule." He has his gloves, and so he could be anyone.

"Sure," the man says, and backhands him across the face.

*

Steve finds him in the bathroom, curled over the tub. He sounds aghast. "Who did this to you?"

"No one," Bucky wipes his mouth. It's bleeding. "Go away, Steve."

"Not until you tell me -"

"Look at me," he rises to his feet, strides forward, and any man but Steve Rogers would back away, but Steve has never been any man, so he just stands his ground, chin tilted upwards. "Do I look like the kind of guy people do things to against his will?"

Something deep within Steve's eyes flickers. "Bucky," and now he sounds shocked, now he sounds sad.

"Get out. Leave me alone. Just get out."

Steve leaves, and Bucky blinks, because he hadn't expected him to. But he's sitting on a chair when Bucky emerges from the bathroom. Still, as if he hasn't moved in hours. Not even to switch on the lights. Bucky leaves them off, takes the couch.

"I don't need to explain myself."

Steve just snorts, with some exasperation. "You think I don't understand?"

"Of course you don't understand." He rises, starts to walk away, but Steve grabs him by the arm. The one that's not metal, and even though Bucky tries to pull away, his heart's not in it. They end up in a heap on the floor, Steve heavy on top of him.

"You think I don't understand," Steve says. "What it's like to have lost everything. Everyone."

"You didn't lose yourself."

"No, but I lost you. Dammit, Bucky." His breath hitches, and he sounds near tears. "You are all I have left."

"Then you have nothing."

"I refuse to believe that."

It's Bucky that kisses him. Cranes his neck up and mashes their lips together, like he's done so many times in the safety of the dark. Steve stays stiff for the briefest of moments, and then he gives in, his body almost collapsing onto Bucky's. The kiss is mostly teeth and tongue, and ends when Bucky bites down hard on Steve's lower lip, tastes blood. Steve just pushes away, his breathing heavy and the blood dark against his lips.

"Hit me," Bucky says. Steve shakes his head. "Hit me. I want you - I need you -" His voice breaks, and he can't go on.

"I can't. You don't - I can't." Bucky turns his head away, closes his eyes. Everything is lost, then. He has nowhere to hide his shame. Until Steve says, "All right, okay. All right - I just, we need to discuss things. What I can do, what I can't. What you want me to do."

Bucky finds himself nodding along, okay they'll discuss things, set boundaries, it will be good, it will be fine. Steve won't hate him, not today at least. But then the hysteria starts to build again, and he finds himself shoving at Steve. "Fuck your boundaries," he snarls, and manages to scramble out from under him. "And fuck you too."

He escapes from the apartment, doesn't return for a week.

*

He finds a man, and then another one, and then another. People who don't ask questions, don't want to talk about their feelings.

Steve finds him, and it must be because he got tired of waiting for Bucky to return home: he surely knew where Bucky was all the time. He starts to speak, and Bucky just blinks wearily at him, can't hear a word he says.


End file.
